The Montreal Canadiens led 4-0 with 2:39 left in regulation on Tuesday night and lost 5-4 in overtime to the Winnipeg Jets at the Centre Bell. It is the latest four-goal lead ever blown in NHL history. This is not another recap (read our full Jets recap for the game story). This article looks at where the Habs collapse ranks, what happened moment by moment, what Martin St-Louis and his players said, and what it tells us about this team.

The Short Version

• Montreal led 4-0 with 2:39 left, and Winnipeg scored four times in 2:06 to tie it before winning in overtime. It is the latest four-goal lead ever blown in NHL history.
• The Canadiens had no timeout left, iced the puck twice and left Jake Evans and Kaiden Guhle on the ice for 84 seconds, while coverage and puck-management mistakes led to the goals.
• The warning signs were there: Montreal allowed 50 or more shot attempts at 5-on-5 in four of its last five games, and the results were hiding it.
• Jacob Fowler stopped the first 36 shots he faced and did not lose this game.
• My take: this team is not a contender yet, and how it responds in the next few games will show why.

Where This Collapse Ranks

The Jets’ comeback started at 57:21 of the game. The previous latest four-goal comeback in NHL history belonged to the Los Angeles Kings, who started theirs against Dallas at 52:46 on November 10, 2007. Winnipeg also scored its fastest four goals in franchise history, in 2:06, beating the old mark of 2:16 set on November 9, 1984.

The Canadiens have given up big leads before. The New York Rangers came back from 4-0 to win 6-5 on November 23, 2019, and the Vancouver Canucks came back from 4-0 to win 7-6 in overtime on December 5, 2022. In both games the four-goal lead was reached in the second period or earlier, so at least one full period was left to repair the damage.

This time Montreal had 2:39 left, and the opponent was a team on a nine-game losing streak (0-7-2) that had just lost 7-0 in Carolina. The Canadiens came in with five straight wins and a point in eight straight games (6-0-2), and they are now 9-3-3 with 21 points. The case for calling it the biggest collapse in franchise history is not the score. It is the clock. Earlier teams had time to fix the problem. This group had 159 seconds.

The Two Minutes, Moment by Moment

Time	Score	What happened	Canadiens skaters on the ice
17:21	4-1	Tyrel Bauer snap shot, 8 seconds after a neutral-zone faceoff	Owen Beck, Oliver Kapanen, Chris Kreider, Adam Engström, Arber Xhekaj
17:48	4-1	Adam Engström hits the right post, one goal away from 5-1	Phillip Danault, Zachary Bolduc, Alexandre Texier, Arber Xhekaj, Adam Engström
18:03	4-2	Morgan Barron snap shot on a two-on-one	Phillip Danault, Zachary Bolduc, Alexandre Texier, Arber Xhekaj, Lane Hutson
18:11	4-2	Montreal ices the puck, faceoff in its own zone, Winnipeg pulls its goalie	Jake Evans, Kaiden Guhle, Alexandre Carrier, Josh Anderson, Alex Newhook
19:00	4-3	Kyle Connor slap shot, Jets take their timeout	Jake Evans, Kaiden Guhle, Alexandre Carrier, Phillip Danault, Juraj Slafkovský
19:22	4-3	Second Montreal icing, faceoff in its own zone	Jake Evans, Kaiden Guhle, Alexandre Carrier, Phillip Danault, Josh Anderson
19:27	4-4	Kyle Connor snap shot, 6-on-4 after the Carrier tripping penalty at 19:25	Jake Evans, Kaiden Guhle, Phillip Danault, Noah Dobson
OT 3:30	5-4	Dylan Samberg snap shot on 3-on-3 wins it	Jake Evans, Cole Caufield, Lane Hutson (3-on-3)

Source: NHL play-by-play and shift charts. Times are elapsed time in the third period.

Here is what went wrong on each goal.

Goal 1 (17:21, 4-1): bad coverage. In my read of the play, Oliver Kapanen did not follow his man, and Arber Xhekaj screened Jacob Fowler on the shot. Tyrel Bauer scored 8 seconds after a neutral-zone faceoff, and every Montreal skater on the ice had been out for 20 seconds or less, so this was not fatigue. It was a coverage mistake.

Goal 2 (18:03, 4-2): the right idea at the wrong time. The play started in the Jets’ end. Zachary Bolduc sent the puck back below the goal line, exactly what St-Louis had asked for that morning, but it got away from Phillip Danault. Arber Xhekaj then stepped up in the neutral zone to kill the rush, as the system asks, the puck got past him, and Winnipeg had a 2-on-1 that Morgan Barron finished. Adam Engström had hit the right post at 17:48 with the score 4-1, and a fifth goal there ends the game. Still, with a three-goal lead in the third period, a defenceman holds the blue line. The system calls for the step-up, but the situation did not.

Goal 3 (19:00, 4-3): a free man. In my read of the play, Juraj Slafkovský did not cover Kyle Connor, who was alone. It came one second after a Montreal turnover in its own zone at 18:59. Winnipeg had pulled its goalie, so it had an extra skater, and the first rule against an extra attacker is to know where the free man is. Connor, who now has 13 goals in 16 games, was the free man.

Goal 4 (19:27, 4-4): the penalty that opened the door. Alexandre Carrier was called for tripping at 19:25, which turned Winnipeg’s 6-on-5 into a 6-on-4. Connor scored two seconds later. Late in a one-goal game, with the other team’s goalie on the bench, a defenceman cannot reach with his stick. He has to use his body position and let the clock work. The legs were also a problem. Montreal iced the puck at 18:11 and 19:22, so it could not change, and Jake Evans and Kaiden Guhle stayed on the ice for 84 seconds, from 18:03 to 19:27.

Overtime goal (3:30): a turnover, a lost battle, a free man. Lane Hutson, Jake Evans and Cole Caufield were the three Montreal skaters on the ice. Hutson gave up the puck, Evans lost his battle, and Dylan Samberg was alone at the back door. Hutson had been on the ice since 2:26, a shift of 64 seconds.

No timeout. The NHL play-by-play shows that Montreal’s only timeout came at 3:03 of the second period, when the Canadiens led 2-0. Winnipeg called its timeout after the 4-3 goal. When the third goal went in, the Montreal bench could not stop the game, settle the group and reset the structure.

Fowler Held, Then the Fights Changed the Game

Before the collapse, Jacob Fowler kept Montreal in control. He stopped all 30 shots Winnipeg took in the first two periods, and he stopped six more in the third period before the first goal. The Jets had nothing, and Montreal led 4-0.

Then the game changed. At 10:40 of the third period, Arber Xhekaj and Tyrel Bauer fought. Bauer lost that fight, but it changed the rhythm of the game. A team that leads by four goals wants a quiet, slow game. A fight does the opposite: the building gets loud, the bench gets emotional, and the lead stops feeling safe. At 12:50 Florian Xhekaj took a roughing penalty with Neal Pionk, and at 15:02 he fought Adam Lowry.

From there, everything fell apart. From 15:02 to 17:21, Montreal did not have a single shot attempt, and Winnipeg had four. Then Bauer, the player who lost the fight, scored his first NHL goal at 17:21. The fights are not the only reason for the collapse. Montreal still led by four goals after both of them, and nobody should blame them alone. But when you lead 4-0 there is no reason to fight. The game was won. The fights gave Winnipeg the energy and the first push it needed.

What Was Going Wrong Before the Collapse

The Jets controlled long stretches of the game. They outshot Montreal 47-22 and led 54-38 in shot attempts at 5-on-5. In the second period alone, Winnipeg had 19 shots on goal to Montreal’s 7. Montreal still led 2-0 after the first period and 3-0 after the second, so the score never matched the shot clock.

The third period looked different at first. From the fourth goal to the first Jets goal, shot attempts were close, 16 for Montreal and 14 for Winnipeg, and the Jets had only six shots on goal in those 16 minutes. But Montreal’s last shot on goal before the collapse came at 12:21. For the next 7:39 of regulation the Canadiens had no shot on goal at all, while Winnipeg took nine shots, four of them goals. When a team protecting a lead stops threatening the other end, the other team gets the puck, the territory and the belief that the game is still alive.

What the Players and Coach Said

Cole Caufield, who scored twice, did not hide his frustration. “The guys thought the game was over, I think,” Caufield said. “Listen, a four-goal lead, there’s no excuse for this. Yeah, it was terrible.” St-Louis put the responsibility on his own group. “We inflicted this result on ourselves. Few players had a good game,” he said, adding that it was one of his team’s worst games at five-on-five. He also said he had never lived through a collapse like this one. “Maybe it is the thing you needed as a team. We will analyze, we will correct and we will move forward.”

Asked if the team got complacent with a 4-0 lead, Kaiden Guhle answered, “Yes, probably.” He said the group had felt during the winning streak that it could play better: “This time, it played a trick on us and caught up with us.” Josh Anderson took the blame as a leader: “It is part of my mandate to be a leader on this team, and I did not do my job.” The quotes from St-Louis, Guhle and Anderson are translated from French.

On the Winnipeg side, coach Scott Arniel praised Fowler. “We had 86 shot attempts tonight,” Arniel said. “We spent a lot of time in their end of the rink. That young Fowler kid, wow. That’s twice now I’ve seen him. I don’t want to see him anymore.” Arniel also said four goals in 2:06 rarely happens and that the win felt like a playoff victory.

Fowler Did Not Lose This Game

Jacob Fowler stopped the first 36 shots he faced in regulation. Winnipeg then scored on four of its last seven shots of the third period. He finished with 42 saves on 47 shots (.894), and Stuart Skinner stopped 18 of 22 for Winnipeg (.818). He came within 2:39 of his second shutout in three games, after blanking St. Louis on October 27. Fowler was not the reason this game was lost.

The Warning Signs Were There

This was not the first time Montreal let a lead slip this season. On October 20, the Canadiens led San Jose 3-1 in the second period and lost 4-3 in overtime. Guhle pointed to that game after Tuesday’s loss, and to the way the five-game winning streak was built: the team found ways to win without always playing well.

The results had been running ahead of the performance. Before the Jets game, Montreal was 8-0-1 when leading after two periods, which is the mark of a team that manages games well. But in its last five games, it allowed 50 or more shot attempts at 5-on-5 four times (Winnipeg 55, St. Louis 56, Pittsburgh 50 and Winnipeg 54). In its first ten games, it had done that once, against Carolina (53).

Saturday’s win over Pittsburgh was the same story. Montreal went into the third period with a two-goal lead, was outshot 15-4 in the period and held on 5-4. The scoreboard said the process was fine. The shot clock said it was not.

St-Louis talked about this exact situation on the morning of the game. Teams that are chasing, he said, wait for a turnover in the offensive zone, so when you protect a lead you throw the puck back down, keep a forecheck going and do not force plays to the slot. Montreal had done that well all season. On Tuesday the right habits were there for most of the third period, then broke down in the worst possible minutes.

My Take: The Mindset of the Coach and the Players

I have followed the Canadiens for more than 55 years, and this is the worst collapse I have seen from Le Tricolore. I was celebrating with everybody during my live stream with less than three minutes to play, and I never imagined that a 4-0 lead could turn into this. I am still upset as I write this, and I will not pretend otherwise. It was painful to watch the team come apart second by second, and in my view it is unacceptable for both the coaching staff and the players.

The numbers show how rare it is. According to NHL research, teams that led by four goals with about three minutes left had won every time before Tuesday, 299-0.

Martin St-Louis: Where Is the Anger?

After the game, I was surprised by how calm Martin St-Louis was at the press conference. We are in a new generation of coaches, and I cannot imagine Scotty Bowman, Mike Keenan, Pat Burns or even Michel Therrien walking to the podium that composed after a loss like this. He spoke as if almost nothing had happened. He did say the team did not deserve to win, but I did not hear the anger. This was the latest four-goal lead ever blown in NHL history, and it did not seem to shake him. I did not like his reaction.

I believe the coach has to own this game. If he does not want to name any of his players in order to protect them, I understand that, but he has to tell the truth about his own part. In my view he was overwhelmed in the last three minutes and in overtime, and I did not like his choice of players on the ice at the end of regulation and in overtime. The 84-second shift of Evans and Guhle that I described above is part of that. To be fair, his message that a team has to be mentally stronger than one setback is the right one. A message only counts when the next game proves it.

The Players: Many Are Responsible

It would be easy to blame a few players, but it would not be right to blame one individual. Many of them are responsible. Fowler deserved better. He was the only reason Winnipeg stayed at zero goals until the last few minutes, with save after save. Maybe he could have stopped one of the goals, but I believe the Jets’ comeback rattled him.

The Canadiens were outshot again. I checked, and it has now happened in four of their last six games: Winnipeg on October 25 (34-21), St. Louis on October 27 (46-21), Pittsburgh on October 31 (29-27) and Winnipeg again on Tuesday (47-22). They went 5-0-1 in those six games, 11 points out of 12, but you cannot win like that all the time, and some of those wins came because of Fowler. This was one of their worst 5-on-5 games of the season. The Canadiens had only 38 of the 92 shot attempts at 5-on-5, 41.3 percent, and only Carolina and St. Louis were worse. Fowler kept them in the game.

I do not want to blame the two fights by the Xhekaj brothers alone, but I do not understand why they happened when the team led 4-0. They are not the only ones to blame.

Juraj Slafkovský

Slafkovský had two assists, both on the power play, but his overall game was not good again, and I would not have had him on the ice at the end of the game. He is not playing at the level he is capable of, and maybe it is time for the coach to send him a message.

The Centres: Suzuki Was Missed

For the first time since Nick Suzuki was injured, we really felt his absence. I believe that with Suzuki in the lineup, the Canadiens win this game. No centre had a good game overall, and they could not win faceoffs at the end of the game: Montreal won only 5 of 15 faceoffs from 17:00 of the third period through overtime. I did not understand why Suzuki was not in the lineup after he practised with the team on the first line. Either way, the Canadiens need Suzuki back.

Lane Hutson

Lane Hutson needs to be better. I know it is hard to criticize him because of the way he plays and the points he collects, but defensively he is struggling. In many games he makes a mistake and the puck ends up in the net. In overtime it was the same situation: a turnover by Hutson opened the door for the winning goal. Caufield had already left the zone, believing Hutson would go around the Jets player. We love Hutson, but he is not defending the way he did last season.

One Positive: The Power Play

Enough negatives, here is one positive. The power play scored twice, both goals by Cole Caufield, his 9th and 10th of the season. It was better, and hopefully it is the beginning of something over the next few games.

Is This Team a Contender Yet?

Should we be worried about this game? A little, and at some point you have to be concerned. This is still a young and immature team, but it has a great culture, and Martin St-Louis is very strong mentally. That is where I am less concerned.

But my answer to the question in the title is no, this team is not a contender yet. Contenders close games, and Montreal gave up 50 or more shot attempts at 5-on-5 in four of its last five games while being saved by its results and by Fowler. The next opponents are harder, and playing this way could produce a few losses against teams like Utah, Toronto, Minnesota and Colorado. How the Canadiens respond over the next few games will show whether this collapse becomes a lesson or a habit.

What Comes Next

Montreal hosts Utah on Thursday, November 5, at the Centre Bell, then visits Toronto on Saturday, November 7. See the Lineup Tonight page and the Injury Report before each game, and read our Jets preview and the Fowler Calder case article for more on how this team got here.

Sources: official NHL statistics, NHL play-by-play and shift charts, NHL.com, HABSHQ analysis, RDS and The Athletic.